You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave

Oh goodie, next time I go to Saudi Arabia, I can leave my eunuchs at home:

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi authorities, breaking with religious codes that require women to be accompanied by a male guardian, have decided to allow women to stay in hotels on their own, a newspaper reported on Monday.

 

A royal decree allowed the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to lay down new regulations simply requiring women to show personal identification including a photograph, which hotel managers must register with local police, al-Watan said.

Tribal custom and hardline religious strictures limit women's movement in the conservative Islamic state, the only country in the world where women are forbidden from driving.

Saudi women can face harassment from the religious police if they are not accompanied in public areas by a male relative who acts as her "guardian". The rules are less strictly enforced for foreigners and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's most liberal city.

The paper said the rules, set out in last month's decree, were worked out in coordination with the Ministry of the Interior and the religious police organization, two bodies who rights activists say stand in the way of improved women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

Concern over the country's image abroad and a desire to integrate women into the national economy have driven liberal voices within government to advance more freedoms for women.

Wonder when the Bush regime will care as much about women's rights in the kingdom as it pretends to in Afghanistan?

I don't. I don't have time to waste.

UPPITY DATE: Saudi women have apparently won their long fight to drive their own cars! The Kingdom is supposedly lifting the ban by the end of the year.

Critics believe allowing women to drive would be the first step towards a gradual erosion of the kingdom's modesty laws. A woman would have to remove the traditional abaya robe to get a clear view behind the wheel.

"Allowing women to drive will only bring sin," a letter to Al-Watan newspaper declared last year. "The evils it would bring - mixing between the genders, temptations, and tarnishing the reputation of devout Muslim women - outweigh the benefits."

Oh just STFU.

Comments

[stephen.reeves]

You did not seem to care about womens' rights in Aghanistan, you are only concerned about womens rights in Arabia because they are pro-Bush./

[Antonia]

Stephen, here's a news flash. Feminists were hollering about the Taliban and what it was doing to women LONG before you -- or the right -- were.
http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670043170,00.html

And more ...

http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190136/

And more ...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000529/pollitt

And more ...

http://feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=2221

[sooey]

Tell our Army Brass/New Conservatives that, Antonia. They don't seem to know our actual history in Afghanistan.